By Ahmad Shuaibu Isa
Many who speak confidently about Iran fail this test. Selective morality often replaces principled judgement, particularly when criticism aligns comfortably with dominant geopolitical interests. While individuals are inevitably shaped by their environments and social circles, a reality that warrants patience and dialogue, adaptation must never become moral compromise. When good people excuse or normalise forces whose actions have historically devastated societies, silence ceases to be neutrality and becomes complicity. Turning a blind eye to reality because certain alliances serve ideological or personal agendas is not progress but a betrayal of justice.
Iran is not a small or marginal state. It is one of the most strategically significant countries in the world, defined by its vast territory, large population, and geographic position at the intersection of the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Eurasia. Few states simultaneously border critical energy corridors, major civilisational regions, and rival power blocs that include Europe, Russia, China, and the Persian Gulf. This strategic gravity alone ensures that Iran cannot be ignored by global powers. It must be contested.
In addition to geography, Iran possesses some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas, alongside substantial mineral wealth, fertile land, and long term energy potential. History offers a consistent lesson in this regard. Resource rich states that refuse Western alignment rarely enjoy peace. From Iraq and Libya to Venezuela and Nigeria, independence combined with strategic value has repeatedly attracted coercion, destabilisation, and containment rather than partnership. Iran’s leadership is therefore rational in interpreting sustained external pressure not merely as humanitarian concern but as strategic interest.
Iran’s worldview cannot be understood without recognising its civilisational depth. It is not merely a modern nation state but the inheritor of one of humanity’s oldest continuous civilisations. Long before many contemporary political entities existed, Persia had developed empires, Islamic systems of government , Knowledge , administrative institutions, cities, and intellectual traditions. This historical memory matters. Societies with deep civilisational consciousness do not see themselves as disposable political experiments. They view themselves as custodians of continuity, identity, and sovereignty across generations.
The Islamic Republic, regardless of one’s ideological position, understands itself as a guardian of this continuity. Its political identity is shaped both by Islamic ethical principles and by a historical experience marked by foreign intervention and imposed modernisation. In an international system governed more by power than morality, this self understanding explains Iran’s insistence on independence and resistance.At this point, it is necessary to address a recurring analytical error, namely the comparison between Iran and Turkey. Such comparisons rely on false equivalence and selective history.
Turkey emerged from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a defeated but internally cohesive nation state. Iran, by contrast, was never formally colonised but was persistently manipulated by foreign powers, first Britain and Russia and later the United States. Most crucially, Iran experienced the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, orchestrated with foreign involvement, which destroyed constitutional politics and delegitimised peaceful reform. From that moment, revolution rather than gradual reform appeared to many Iranians as the only viable path for change.
Turkey never endured an equivalent foreign imposed overthrow of a popular nationalist government. To compare the gradual and contested reintroduction of religion into Turkish public life with Iran’s revolutionary rupture therefore ignores fundamentally different political starting points. Similarly, portraying Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah as modernisers whose principal failing was authoritarianism significantly understates reality. Modernisation in Iran was imposed from above, often violently and without popular consent. Forced unveiling, suppression of clerics, censorship, the expansion of the security apparatus, and systematic political repression alienated large segments of society. Secularism was not experienced as neutral or emancipatory but as cultural erasure and humiliation.
The 1979 Revolution itself is often misrepresented as a simple replacement of rigid secularism with rigid theocracy. In reality, it was initially a pluralistic movement that included Islamic thinkers, leftists, liberals, nationalists, students, and workers. Its early rhetoric centred on anti imperialism, social justice, and national independence. The later consolidation of clerical authority emerged through internal power struggles, war, and sustained external pressure. Judging the revolution solely by its later institutional form reflects hindsight judgement rather than serious historical analysis.
The Iran Iraq War further shaped this trajectory. Iran was invaded in 1980 with substantial regional and Western backing for Saddam Hussein. The war militarised society, strengthened hardline factions, and marginalised reformist voices. Many authoritarian features associated with the Islamic Republic were products of prolonged conflict rather than intrinsic elements of the revolution itself.
Global politics does not operate on innocence. The United States has openly funded Persian language media, supported opposition networks abroad, and repeatedly declared its desire to alter Iran’s behaviour and political structure. Israel treats Iran as a primary strategic adversary, largely due to Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause. Protests and unrest in a strategically vital country do not occur in a geopolitical vacuum. Recognising this does not deny legitimate grievances. It acknowledges reality.
The broader ideological framework shaping these narratives is rooted in colonial legacy. Counterfeit models of democracy and freedom are often promoted while histories of exploitation are minimised or erased. While Islamic civilisation was laying the foundations of advances in science, medicine, mathematics, and governance, Europe remained in intellectual stagnation. Scholars such as Al Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina, Al Haytham, and Al Biruni made contributions that later became foundational to the European Renaissance. To deny this is to deny documented history.
Islam is frequently portrayed as incompatible with freedom. This claim is historically illiterate. Islamic political thought has long emphasised justice, accountability, public trust, welfare, diplomacy, and the protection of minorities. Freedom within this tradition is understood as a balance between rights and responsibility. In Iran, recognised religious minorities are legally permitted to practise their faiths and preserve their identities, reflecting principles embedded in Islamic jurisprudence.
Human rights discourse, however, loses its moral authority when applied selectively.
The United States records mass incarceration, systemic racial inequality, and widespread police violence. The United Kingdom faces serious criticism for restricting protest rights, failing asylum seekers, and tolerating modern slavery on a significant scale. Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank have resulted in extensive civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of essential infrastructure, documented by international organisations. These realities expose the inconsistency of moral judgement in global politics.
Iran’s human rights framework is rooted in a distinct moral philosophy that links rights to social justice, responsibility, and communal welfare. Over the past four decades, Iran has maintained constitutional recognition of religious minorities and framed governance around ethical obligation rather than individual entitlement alone. This does not negate legitimate criticism, but it does require contextual understanding rather than ideological caricature.
From Tehran’s perspective, sovereignty is not a slogan but a necessity. State collapse harms ordinary people far more than entrenched elites. Resistance, suspicion, and firmness are understood as survival mechanisms in a hostile system. Iran’s leadership does not claim perfection. It claims historical experience.
Ultimately, Iran’s position is both rational and justified when examined within its historical and geopolitical context. Faced with sustained foreign intervention, economic coercion, and existential security threats, Iran’s emphasis on resistance, deterrence, and sovereignty represents a deliberate strategy of survival rather than ideological obstinacy.
A strategically vital, resource rich, and independent state cannot afford political naivety without risking fragmentation or external domination. Whether one approves of Iran’s methods or not, acknowledging the legitimacy of its security logic is essential. Only through such recognition can analysis move beyond reductionist narratives and engage seriously with political reality and historical truth
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